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[tomoose]

I'm a relative newcomer to BAT and am currently trying the Battle of Britain campaign.  I'm not doing that well as I always seem to end up on my own over the water near Manston and getting shot up by numerous 109s with no help in sight.

My question is not really BAT related but more of idle curiousity...
In short:  I'm not sure which AI aircraft I'm supposed to be partnered with at takeoff.  I spawn in my Spitfire and there are others starting up and taxiing to takeoff etc.  I just blindly follow them as I'm not sure which one to link up with.

Shortly after takeoff I hear "What the hell!"  instead of "What the hell! Stay in formation!" but assume it's aimed at me anyway.  I usually just find the nearest Spitfire and 'buddy up' and ignore the "What the hell!" as it gives no indication as to who's yelling at me LOL.

Any suggestions?
thanks,
Tomoose

[wern moldy]

Hello,
You've picked what I consider to be amongst the hardest campaigns, especially the first 2 missions in BoB Crisis.
The rank you select will determine where you sit in the formation; highest rank and you'll lead. The mission briefing page will tell you which. Usually you'll be the wingman to the leader, so once you start engine, go to external view and follow the first plane to move; that's your leader.
The plane markings normally determine who the leader is, but if you're playing this in 'Red Core', all BoB campaigns now start with a/c markings turned off for some reason.

Don't get into a melee. What I find in missions with large numbers of a/c is, a lot of enemy ai single out the player and shoot the crap out of you from every angle. For me it's still the most annoying aspect of this game. In a dozen or so attempts at that first mission over the years, I reckon I've come away unscathed probably twice. keep your speed and altitude up, fly through the enemy formation on your first pass and get into a safe position before attempting another intercept; in other words, choose your moments. Don't just have a go at any enemy plane in range.

Personally, I just delete campaigns where I end up getting chased by just about every ai plane as though you're the only enemy in the sky, especially when you gotta fly for 40 mins or more just to see any action. Even when using the skip function you end up looking at a black screen for what seems like 3 days. Sometimes I reckon I could go out and buy a burger, take a dump and still find myself waiting....only to get the crap shot out of you by 9 spitfires in the first 10 seconds of combat....then I ask myself, 'Do I really want to go through all that again in hope of getting a better result??!!' The answer is usually, 'No, I have better things to do with my  time'.

[sturmbock]

As for following your flight leader, my recommendation is to install NG_Map and NG_HUD. When activating the map during the mission, the HUD will indicate the direction in which your leader is and his height, being easy to find him. You can modify the difficulty of these two applications, but I imagine you already know them.

Protecting his six is something else. As soon as you fire a single burst to scare away someone, you will have a swarm that will not leave you, even if you do not use deodorant. In this case, there is a little cheat, dive full speed to sea level and stay below 20m/50feet flying in a straight line and ask for help, try not to turn until the swarm are far enough away or you see some of your buddies go into combat with them, right now take a safe position and as Wern Moldy says try to hunt something, but do it fast, if you delay turning, climbing, etc, as soon as you have your target within range, there will be someone at your six ready to kill you. this is basically my experience in 4.12.

[tomoose]

Yup, the first two missions are exactly the problem at the moment.  I survived the first mission (after two tries and ignoring trying to stay with the wingman but getting altitude i.e. speed/manoeuvre room).  The second mission is much like the first and I haven't survived over four attempts so far as I get to be the center of attention for a bunch of 109s.
What I plan to do is go into the .mis and change the skill level of the 109s to zero plus as suggested switch to boom and zoom tactics.  I'll see how that goes.  First, however, I need to wait for a new cooling system as my PC just gave up the ghost with the dreaded "CPU overtemperature error".  I tried cleaning it out and applying new thermal paste but even at the BIOS POST the CPU temp went steadily up to 80C (red zone) and shut down each time.  So the BoB campaign is on hold at the moment......d'oh!!

[Vampire_pilot]

The plane markings normally determine who the leader is, but if you're playing this in 'Red Core', all BoB campaigns now start with a/c markings turned off for some reason.

That is a total misconception. Nothing changed here.

the campaign was written like this by Monty:

  skin0 74SQN-ZP A Malan.bmp
  skin1 74SQN-ZP D.bmp
  skin2 74SQN-ZP I.bmp
  pilot0 GB01.bmp
  pilot1 GB02.bmp
  pilot2 GB03.bmp
  numberOn0 0
  numberOn1 0
  numberOn2 0

That means, markings off and specific skins loaded. If you do not have these skins - for whatever reason - you will see a blank plane.
I can only suggest to download the referenced v4 skin packs... I am afraid for these old campaigns by Monty there is no stand alone download where you could check or get this specifically.

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,53403.0.html

[wern moldy]

Well, just to make sure I didn't imagine loading in the V4 skinpack, I installed it again and no change. Upon mission start I end up with 'default skin markings off'. Every other a/c in the squadron is the same.